The Ideal Teacher Different Images

Abstract

Although much of the pedagogical diligence is concerned with the building of the ideal educator, the very complexity of the educational phenomenon leads to the production of different images of what would be a better educator. Educational research usually approaches the question of ideal teacher manufacturing lists of characteristics, which applicability is questionable since they feed upon unrealistic crystallized images of professional existence. The media romanticize the ideal educator; movies spread conceptions that tell tales of unrealistic heroic teachers. Teachers and students have their own expectations about motivation and pedagogic skills. Meanwhile, didactic tools are constantly produced and updated to contribute to the instrumentalization of the area towards a professional horizon. These tools and expectations are often distant from a necessary emotional judgment to each professional’s idiosyncratic construction. Aesthetics impress relevance about the emotional dimensions of the teacher while psychoanalysis establishes the incompleteness of teachers’ work. Their own way of approaching this question is standing out from a crystallizing judgment of the subjects and their demands. The present work transits through these different perspectives as a child that twiddles a kaleidoscope, in the sense of illuminating these standpoints that contribute to the construction of the imaginary of the idealized model of excellence for teachers.